Vanuatu

Acting Principal Electoral Officer Joe Johnson Iati said members of the VMF have been at the Electoral Office for the past two weeks assisting hundreds of people to get proxies and duplicate cards for the polls. 

Around 200,000 registered voters will cast their ballots for the 362 candidates contesting the Pacific Island nation’s snap election, scheduled for this Friday, 22 January. Polling booths will open from 7.30 in the morning.

A total of Vt70 million has gone into printing the ballot papers which were completed Thursday last week by Sun Production printers.

Acting Principal Electoral Officer Joe Johnson Iati said members of the VMF have been at the Electoral Office for the past two weeks assisting hundreds of people to get proxies and duplicate cards for the polls. 

Around 200,000 registered voters will cast their ballots for the 362 candidates contesting the Pacific Island nation’s snap election, scheduled for this Friday, 22 January. Polling booths will open from 7.30 in the morning.

A total of Vt70 million has gone into printing the ballot papers which were completed Thursday last week by Sun Production printers.

The president of Vanuatu Youth Against Corruption, Priscilla Meto, told our correspondent more than 70 per cent of people who turned 18 after the last election in 2012 will be unable to vote on Friday.

She says more than 3,000 young people haven't been able to enrol and will have to wait until 2020 to be heard.

Mr Silas's suspension comes five days after Mr Kilman suspended another officer, Jackson Noal on the advice of the police commissioner, John Taleo.

Mr Noal says his suspension was linked to a letter he wrote to the chair of the Police Service Commission asking that Taleo be suspended after he was convicted on two counts of dangerous driving.

Mr Sokomanu gave a speech saying how important it was to gain political freedom from colonial rule.

He said no amount of money, especially in the form of a bribe, compares with the hunger for freedom after 74 years of colonial rule over the then New Hebrides.

She says this is because the nature of the snap election means the Electoral Commission has been unable to issue new electoral cards to many of those people.

Ms Meto says this is unfair as it means more than 3,000 young people will not be able to exercise their right to vote, and will have to wait until 2020 to be heard.

Forward Keren Coulon and midfielder Delphine Kalmet were both members of the Vanuatu U-20 women’s side who missed out on achieving a bronze-medal finish at the 2015 OFC
U-20 Women’s Championship last October due to goal difference.

Both players are now key members of the U-17 team vying for a semi-final berth in Rarotonga, and are eager to taste success this time around.

Players have been asked to come to Amicale FC football field at 4.30pm.

“We know that Port Vila Football will start soon and I am asking our players to come to our first meeting and training this Tuesday 19 January 2016 at Amicale field in Port Vila.” said Masauvakalo.

Some of the Red Rooster’s overseas players arrived in the country last week including their Italian goalkeeper Mauro Boerchio.

The MSG Observer Mission is led by former parliamentarian and Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands Sir Francis Hilly Billy and will also include observers from Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia.

Saneem says he is honored to observe Vanuatu’s snap election following Fiji’s participation in the Bougainville election through the Pacific Islands Forum Observer Mission last year.

Meanwhile, a team from the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force has left for Port Vila, Vanuatu, to assist with the country’s upcoming snap elections this Friday.

Eighteen Ni-Vanuatu graduates from medical schools in Cuba, Fiji and China took their Hippocrates’s Oath in front of the Acting Director General of Health, George Taleo and senior clinicians, Dr Hensley Garae and Dr Basil Leodoro last week.

The ceremony marks the beginning of their two years internship program before they receive their license to practice as medical doctors.